‘You’re a sceptic, Mr May. I don’t mind.’ Edna gave a throaty chuckle. ‘The world will need sceptics after the war is over. Too many people are ready to believe anything they’re told. Where do you want me?’
Bryant led the way up the painted concrete staircase until they reached a set of red double doors. ‘The dress circle will do,’ he told her, ‘there are—’
‘Four floors, yes, I know, upper circle and balcony above us, stalls below.’
‘You can sense the building’s layout?’ asked May.
‘No. I saw No, No, Nanette here. I’ll go down to the front, if I may. Perhaps one of you could carry Rothschild.’
May reluctantly took the cat box and waited as Bryant showed the old lady to the front of the balcony. He raised the box to eye level and peered inside. Something glittered blackly back at him.
‘Do you still have your familiars, Evening Echo and Squadron Leader Smethwick?’ asked Bryant, seating her on the aisle.
‘Sadly no.’ Edna arranged the folds of her coat about her. ‘The German bombers come right over my house and interfere with the signals.’
‘You make it sound like tuning in a wireless, Mrs Wagstaff,’ said May.
‘Well, it’s not dissimilar,’ said Edna. If she detected the scepticism in his voice she gave no sign of it. ‘Ever since they put a barrage balloon at the end of the street I’ve been getting terrible reception.’
‘From your spirit guides?’
‘No, on my wireless. I keep missing Gert and Daisy.’ She leaned forward and looked about. ‘Of course, London theatres are filled with ghosts.’ She smiled, patting Bryant’s arm. ‘Mostly just echoes of emotional experiences, drawn out by the intensity of performance in such buildings. Any actor will tell you. They’re terribly vulnerable to mental distress, you know. Unstable pathologies so often lead to cruelty and suicide. You know about the “Man in Grey”, I suppose.’
‘He appears in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, just before the run of a successful production, doesn’t he?’
‘That’s right, dressed in a three-cornered hat, a powdered periwig and a grey riding cloak. He always follows the same route along the back of the upper circle, starting from the bar and vanishing into the far wall. Even the firewatchers have seen him, and they’re not as prone to nerves as theatre folk. Workmen supposedly found his corpse bricked into a wall on the Russell Street side of the theatre. He had a dagger in his ribs. You can read about him in any cheap guidebook. I don’t suppose there’s much truth to the story, but there’s no denying the fact that such houses attract collective hysteria and magnify the emotions. After all, that’s what they’re intended to do.
‘There are lots of lesser-known spirits, though. The Haymarket has the ghost of the dramatist John Buckstone. Margaret Rutherford had to spend the night there once during a rail strike, and found him in the wardrobe. Or hasn’t that happened yet? Time plays such tricks on me.’ She thought for a moment, relaxing her watery green eyes.
‘We’re more interested in sensations, Edna.’
‘I understand. Could there be another animal in the building apart from Rothschild? A tortoise, perhaps?’
‘Yes, there is,’ said May, looking at his partner in puzzlement.
‘I thought so. I was getting a distress message.’
‘He has insomnia,’ explained Bryant.
Edna stroked her knuckles restlessly, anxious to help. ‘There’s so much humanity here. So many people have passed through. There are few public places left in London that are as psychically rich as its theatres. The interiors don’t change. The walls absorb. I wonder if you’d get Rothschild for me?’
Bryant brought over the cat box and opened the wire door.
‘I must be careful with him,’ said Edna, ‘he’s getting rather fragile.’ Her long, tapered fingers felt around the edges of the cat and pulled him out. Rothschild was a leonine sandstone-coloured Abyssinian, and had been stuffed in crouching position, as if watching a mouse. His ears were tattered with handling, one glass eye had sunk back into his skull and there was sand coming out of his bottom. She carefully set him on the edge of the balcony, facing the stage.
‘Is there any way of lowering the house lights a little?’
May had arranged to have them left up, mainly because he was worried about the old lady tripping over.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he offered, heading back along the balcony.
‘There are plenty of friendly spirits here, but then there should be,’ she chattered on to Bryant. ‘First-time performers are sensitive to them. Sometimes they help newcomers to forget their nerves and remember their lines, or they redirect them to better positions on the stage. Actors sometimes speak of being guided by unseen hands. Oh, there is something here.’ She became silent, and seemed to fall into a light sleep. The house lights dimmed and May quietly returned, taking a seat behind the medium.